The smoke was curling up already in an ugly yellowish brown cloud,
spreading in long leaps before the wind. Jack's hand shook when he
reached for the telephone to report the fire. The chart and his own
first-hand knowledge of the mountainside told him that the fire was
sweeping down north of Toll-Gate Creek toward the heavily timbered
ridge beyond.

Heedless of the presence or absence of the tourists, he snatched the
telescope and climbed the rock where he could view the slope where the
girl had been. The smoke was rolling now over the manzanita slope,
and he could not pierce its murkiness. He knew that the slope was not
yet afire, but the wind was bearing the flames that way, and the
manzanita would burn with a zipping rush once it started. He knew. He
had stood up there and watched the flames sweep over patches of the
shrub.

He rushed back into the station, seized the telephone and called again
the main office.

"For the Lord sake, hustle up here and do something!" he shouted
aggressively. "The whole blamed mountain's afire!" That, of course,
was exaggeration, but Jack was scared.

Out again on the rock, he swept the slope beneath him with his
telescope. He could not see anything of the girl, and the swirling
smoke filled him with a horror too great for any clear thought. He
climbed down and began running down the pack trail like one gone mad,
never stopping to wonder what he could do to save her; never thinking
that he would simply be sharing her fate, if what he feared was
true--if the flames swept over that slope.